UPDATED: EFCC raids Ambode’s residence

Agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are raiding the residence of Akinwumi Ambode, former governor of Lagos state, in Epe area of the state.

Tony Orilade, EFCC spokesman, confirmed this to TheCable on Tuesday.

He said the anti-graft agency had received petitions against the governor, and that it was investigating his administration.

”Yes, we received petitions regarding the governor, and we are investigating,” he said in response to a question from TheCable.

When asked if agents of the commission are at the residence of the governor, he said: ” Yes, that is part of the investigation.”

A federal high court in Lagos had ordered the freezing of three bank accounts allegedly linked to the former governor over a N9.9 billion fraud following an ex parte application by the EFCC.

The accounts are domiciled in First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Access Bank, and Zenith Bank with numbers 5617984012, 0060949275 and 1011691254 respectively.

The EFCC had prayed the court to freeze the accounts pending the conclusion of an investigation and possible prosecution of Adewale Adesanya, permanent secretary in the office of the chief of staff to the governor of the state, for money laundering.

Kungmi Daniel, a member of the EFCC investigating team, said the anti-graft agency discovered “a huge inflow of N9,927,714,443.29” from the state accounts into an FCMB bank account opened on September 17, 2018 during the administration of Ambode.

He said the account was operated by Adesanya.

Ambode denied operating those accounts, saying he had no personal links to them.

“Those accounts were opened in the course of normal operations by the Lagos state government for its administrative purposes and not for the former governor’s personal transactions as was being wrongly insinuated and have been operated to ensure smooth operations of government activities by previous and present administrations,” he had said in a statement issued by Habib Aruna, his media aide.

“The former governor was not and will never be involved in any unauthorised use of government property and resources.”